Digital Marketing News in the Tampa Bay Area and Vestal New York.

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Process Transformation Case Study – Seeds To Sew

Seeds To Sew is a non for profit that specializes in providing funds to under served women in Kenya for education purposes. Women in Kenya are taught to sew an assortment of products. Each seamstress’s products are labeled with their info. The products are sent to the United States to be sold in the Seeds To Sew shop. The profit for each product sold is sent back to the seamstress who sewed the product, allowing them to be able to afford education and improve their quality of life.

Seeds To Sew needed an affordable way to digitally market their website. Besides their physical store, e-commerce makes up a portion of their sales. Thus they needed a partner that could allow them to grow and help as many people as possible.

Sun Sign Designs first addressed their website to assist in setting up the foundation for building out marketing efficiencies. The site was redesigned to focus on the mission of the business and to tell the story of the seamstresses. SSD also made it a product focused website to help Seeds To Sew sell more products as well as build workflows to sell to other outside store channels. SSD made sure all industry standards were ment in how each product was presented so that SEO could function correctly and gain ground in the search engines.

Though a bi-weekly consultative approach, SSD identified challenges with Seeds To Sew and helped provide insights on how to improve the business’s workflow, sales cycle, supply chain and digital presence. Through digital transformation, SSD helped establish loyalty programs, affiliate programs and use digital systems to help build efficiencies in the business to gain more sales as well as, deduce the workload of the executive director. Workload reduction was also implemented in the store software to help manage customers and build retention. Our consultative approach, further assisted in helping combat supply chain challenges and provide potential avenues to retain customers and donors.

If your non profit is having challenges in workflow management, profitability or being efficient, we offer a free consultation to help guide you in the right direction.

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AI Can’t Replace a Marketing Team—Here’s Why

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly impressive and dynamic tool, but what we have realized is this: AI will never be able to replace a marketing team.

Don’t get us wrong, AI automation software that streamlines simple tasks has its place in marketing. These automation tools reduce repetitive tasks, segment lists, and easily add personalization. Sending automatic birthday emails, abandoned cart reminders, and segmented content based on customer triggers is highly effective and a powerful way to engage your audience.

However, while AI is transforming the marketing industry, it won’t be able to replace a team of dedicated marketing professionals. Here’s why:

AI is Mimicking, Not Creating

AI is purely powered by patterns and data. The AI systems trawl large amounts of data and regurgitate existing knowledge, ideas, and images. As a result, AI is not drawing on personal intelligence, creativity, or agency but rather predetermined algorithms that mimic human outputs. When it comes to content creation, AI produces dry imitations of human work that, more often than not, ring insincere, sterile, and unoriginal.

While AI systems may be able to generate an image that is technically proficient or text that is grammatically correct, it will not be able to create compelling, original work that truly engages your audience. AI is mimicking—even, at times, outright plagiarizing—existing works, not creating original content that is actually valuable to your business.

Creativity Can’t Be Automated

At its core, marketing is driven by creativity and innovation. While AI can analyze large datasets and make recommendations based on that data, it cannot brainstorm new, innovative ideas—it can only reiterate concepts that already exist. While AI is limited to pre-determined patterns, structures, and data, humans can draw on their unique life experiences and perspectives as an endless source of creativity.

Sometimes the best marketing decisions aren’t based in facts and datasets. While analytics are helpful, marketing teams often rely on their creativity, intuition, and instincts to make decisions, which is something AI simply cannot replicate.

AI Lacks Personal Touch & Individuality

In competitive markets, ensuring your brand can stand out from the crowd is critical. Brands must focus on stamping their unique identity on all their marketing materials, whether it is through their writing style, tone, artistic techniques, or other personal touches that are singular to their brand.

AI-generated work accelerates the loss of individuality in the same way mass production replaced original craftsmanship—going from one-of-a-kind to run-of-the-mill. In other words, AI systems produce cookie-cutter content that is technically functional but uniform, indistinctive, and completely forgettable. Rather than stand out, AI-generated content will force your brand further into the shadows.

AI is Devoid of Emotion

Building relationships through content requires keen emotional intelligence and empathy. It’s the X factor that marketing will always need. When creating content, the writer, graphic designer, or other marketing professional must first understand the customer and identify with their problems and needs before producing anything. This empathetic mindset results in content that the target audience can truly relate to and engage with on a deeper level. This type of content is not only highly effective in engaging and converting, but it is also incredibly memorable since it sparks an emotional response.

AI has no lived experiences or personal perspectives to draw on and is incapable of emotionally relating to a human audience. It cannot imbue its generated content with rich, complex emotions and feelings like a human can. AI-generated content is largely sterile and devoid of real feeling. It lacks the emotional depth and authenticity that is the hallmark of human creativity. Make no mistake—your audience will be able to detect AI’s stiff, inexpressive, and imitative style.

Human Judgment is Indispensable

Successful marketing requires a deep understanding of human behavior, particularly the needs, desires, and motivations of your target audience, as well as an understanding of ethics. While AI is capable of providing data insights on your customers’ behavior, it is not capable of understanding human emotion, psychology, and ethical decision-making—all of which is essential for making principled, effective marketing choices.

For example, if an AI system draws on biased data or unfairly targets a demographic based on the data it is presented, it may produce writing, images, and other content that is harmful, problematic, and not representative of your business and brand values. The content created by AI is based on patterns and relationships it has learned from existing data, but the AI has no true understanding of the meaning or intention behind the content. As a result, with AI-generated content, the possibility of missing the mark and offending your audience is a very real, ever-present risk.

What is your business’s goal when it comes to content creation?

Do you want to entertain, educate, inform, inspire, or convert? Whatever your goal is, every business needs original content that speaks to their brand identity and engages their audience. Contact us today to discuss content development and marketing strategies that will grow your business.

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The Power of Community Involvement & Giving Back

We believe that, as a business, we are indebted to a society that supports our services and makes our business possible. As a result, we believe that we have a duty to invest back into the community and create positive lasting change that ultimately improves people’s lives. After all, strong communities are what enable businesses of all kinds to succeed in the first place.

Tampa, Florida: Helping Individuals Experiencing Homelessness

As a digital marketing agency, we love to solve difficult marketing challenges. We bring this mindset to our community outreach and try to create new, innovative solutions that effectively address persistent community challenges. Homelessness in Tampa is one such challenge Sun Sign Designs has recently had the privilege to volunteer and work on. Reaching out to individuals experiencing homelessness is critical to helping them access supportive services that restore their dignity and enhance the possibility that they will be able to achieve their housing and life goals.

The Hillsborough Community Homeless Outreach event is a collaborative partnership program between Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Hillsborough County, Tampa Police Department, City of Tampa, Tampa International Airport Police, and Sun Sign Designs Inc., in cooperation with community event sponsors, like Sacred Heart Catholic Church, to support those in the community experiencing homelessness.

Majority of this effort is supported through local charitable donations by the community and event sponsors, including donated time from the partnership’s employees and volunteers from all the participating sponsors in the community. Homeless outreach events such as these are designed to serve disconnected, alienated individuals, integrate them into a network of support, and empower them with necessary services. As a result, the coordination of vendors, volunteers, and services is critical for a successful outreach event—which is where we were able to put our problem-solving mindset and digital marketing tools to good use!

The services Sun Sign Designs provides effectively empower this partnership program through our technology and services to support large scale event planning, operations, and analytics. We also provide consultations on how to evolve the program over time based on partner, vendor, and volunteer feedback and analytics.

Empower Your Community

The importance of giving back to a community that has uplifted you cannot be overstated. For our business, giving back to the community is rewarding, but it is also a natural extension of our company mission. We believe that we have an obligation to reinvest into the community that has helped support our services—in other words, we want to empower those who have empowered us.

As individuals and as businesses, we all have the power to be innovators, to help people, and truly make a difference in our communities. Donating your time, talents, and skills is one of the best ways to develop solutions to problems, make an impact, and improve the lives of those around you.

How does your business or organization use your time, resources, or skills to make a difference? We’d love to hear from you!

Would your nonprofit organization or charitable event benefit from technology and services that support large scale event planning, operations, and analytics? Contact us today and book a free consultation call to discuss your organization’s needs.

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Why Digital Marketing is So Important in Tampa

In Tampa, Florida, the need for digital marketing is growing as fast as the population.

Tampa boasts one of the highest population growth rates in the United States and, with it, an ideal environment for local businesses and organizations to thrive. However, in a constantly growing environment like Tampa, there is steep competition for people’s attention among businesses of all sizes and industries.

Sun Sign Designs believes that behind each business or nonprofit in Tampa, there is the opportunity to enhance our community’s quality of life and meaningfully contribute to community identity. But to grow the diverse local businesses and important organizations that make Tampa great, we need to ensure the community can discover and enjoy them.

Consequently, Tampa digital marketing has become essential for businesses and nonprofit organizations to reach more people and connect their services with the community.

We Know Tampa

At Sun Sign Designs, we are familiar with the challenges Tampa area businesses and nonprofits face. These days it takes more than a website or social media page to expand your reach, appear before your audience, and continue growing. With effective digital marketing tools and a completely customized strategy, we help Tampa businesses and nonprofit organizations grow so they can continue to enrich our community with their services.

Can the Tampa Community Find Your Business or Nonprofit?

93% of U.S. customers rely on search engines to find local businesses and approximately 50% of Tampa adults will spend 10+ hours online weekly searching for local businesses. Is your business or organizations digitally equipped to be found by high-intent customers in the Tampa area?

In a crowded and competitive environment like Tampa, it can be easy to get lost among the competition. But if you can’t be found, your business can’t function, let alone thrive. As a result, a strong digital presence is nonnegotiable if a business or nonprofit organization wants to be found online and visited in-person.

When a business ranks high in local search results, they not only stand out in a competitive market like Tampa but they also position themselves as the more credible business to use. As a result, improved local SEO increases in-store foot traffic, targeted website traffic, and more qualified leads. It is also the first step to building the brand recognition that grows your business and sustains it long-term.

They Can Find You—But Do They Know You?

Optimizing your local SEO is only part of the equation. If your target audience can easily find you in Tampa, do your website and social media pages effectively deliver your message and offer insight into your brand identity? Once your target audience can find you, the next challenge is effectively conveying your mission, brand identity, and offerings.

What do you offer that your competition doesn’t? How do you stand out? And why should they use you instead? These questions, though unspoken, are at the heart of every encounter a person has with your brand. Answering them through digital marketing strategies, such as dedicated content development, creates a journey people are excited to embark on. Content tools, such as blogs, videos, newsletters, website design, and more effectively establish market differentiation, cement relationships, and keep customers coming back.

A strong digital presence and a strong brand identity are key components to growing long-term— digital marketing is what achieves both.

Tampa Digital Marketing Services

Sun Sign Designs is a full-service digital marketing agency dedicated to helping Tampa area businesses and nonprofit organizations thrive. With 23 years in business, we offer backed digital marketing knowledge and expertise that has consistently helped our clients grow. If your Tampa area business or nonprofit organization needs a digital marketing strategy and tools to drive positive results, contact us today!

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Does ADA Compliance Apply to Your Website?

Unless you’re a legal expert, it’s not always clear which laws may or may not apply to your business and website. One such law that has become a hot topic of conversation is ADA Compliance. Does it really apply to your business or organization’s website?

In short, yes. A website that offers goods, services, or information intended to be used by the general public is considered “a place of public accommodation” under Title III of ADA and legally required to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Read on for a more in-depth explanation of ADA Compliance as well as the responsibilities and risks business owners face with their website.

What is the ADA?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990, is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination of individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life and places open to the general public. It applies to the government, schools, and businesses as well as anyone who offers goods or services to the public.

You are most likely familiar with the ADA in its physical sense as you encounter accommodations like wheelchair ramps, which make physical spaces accessible to people with disabilities. However, the ADA has come to apply to our digital spaces, so people with disabilities have equal access to the goods, services, technology, and information found online.

When the ADA was first passed in 1990, there were no websites online. However, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has since stated that the ADA was always meant to keep up with rapidly changing technology. Since 1996, the DOJ has consistently taken the position that the ADA applies to web content and that websites are considered places of public accommodation. In 2010, the DOJ further solidified this position when it released the ADA Standards for Accessible Design.

ADA Compliance vs. Section 508 Compliance

ADA Compliance is not the same thing as 508 Compliance, even though they both involve accessibility.

ADA Compliance is sometimes confused with Section 508 Compliance of the Rehabilitation Act, which is a federal law and strictly applies to federal agencies and federal departments. ADA Compliance is a civil rights law that applies to places of public accommodation, specifically to businesses, nonprofits, local governments, and state governments. In short, if your business or organization caters to the general public, then your website must be ADA Compliant.

The part of ADA that affects how businesses serve the general public, both online and in-person, is under Title III. It is what would be cited if an individual wished to file a civil lawsuit against a business that is physically or digitally inaccessible. Title III of ADA prohibits private places of public accommodation from discriminating against people with disabilities. As a result, businesses of all types (online & in-person) have to make it possible for customers with disabilities to access their services.

Who Needs to be ADA Compliant?

Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public. The U.S. Department of Justice has consistently take the position that the ADA’s requirements apply to all goods, services, privileges, and activities offered by public accommodations.

As a result, if your website offers goods, services, or information intended for the general public, it is legally required to become ADA compliant and offer reasonable accessibility.

Who is Responsible for ADA Compliance?

Every website owner (i.e. the business owner) is solely responsible for developing a website that offers “reasonable accessibility.” Regardless of who builds and develops the website, it is the website owner that is responsible for implementing the accessibility standards and personally liable for noncompliance. In most cases of noncompliance, it is completely unintentional. Even though website owners aren’t intentionally ignoring these standards, they will be held completely liable

What is the Risk of Non-Compliance?

If your website is not ADA-Compliant, then your business faces financial and reputational risks. Under U.S. law, citizens can file civil lawsuits and sue businesses with inaccessible websites. Losing an ADA-related lawsuit can result in:

  • Legal fees
  • Large settlements
  • Damages
  • Hefty fines for violation
  • Public relations problems
  • Damage to brand reputation

Being unaware of the law isn’t a defense against digital inaccessibility and business owners will be held just as liable. First-time violations can result in fines to the government from $55,000-$75,000 and then a $150,000 fine for every repeat violation. In short, if your website is not ADA Compliant, you can end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in paying fines and settling civil lawsuits.

Click here to read about the rapid rise in website accessibility lawsuits.

Become ADA Compliant Today

What does an ADA-complaint website look like exactly? Well, there are no clear regulations. Websites must make an effort to offer “reasonable accessibility” to people with disabilities. It is at the discretion of the business owner how they would like to make their website compliant.

Sun Sign Designs offers the digital accessibility solution needed for your website to meet ADA Compliance. There’s no need to overhaul your website and rewrite code—we will seamlessly integrate our AI-powered accessibility widget onto your website, so your business can remain accessible to all individuals. We offer an easy, secure compliance solution that doesn’t require reworking your entire site.

To find out more about ADA website compliance, how you can provide equal access and protect your business, contact Sun Sign Designs today!

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Sun Sign Designs Presents ARI Global’s New Logo

Sun Sign Designs is proud to present ARI Global’s new logo design!

ARI Global Inc., Accounts Receivable Insurance, is a monoline brokerage specializing in trade credit insurance. With headquarters in Tampa, Florida, and dedicated credit insurance specialists located in major metropolitan areas, ARI provides global and national coverage with local representation. ARI prides itself on locating the best contract with the most coverage and least cost for its clients. Since its inception in 1996, ARI has remained a leading trade credit insurance broker and has been consistently recognized as a Preferred Broker with major carriers.

ARI Global turned to Sun Sign Designs to refresh its branding and design a beautiful new logo that speaks to their mission, backs their professional expertise and credibility, and strengthens their brand identity. As the trusted partner for trade credit solutions, ARI Global wanted a logo that embodied their expert guidance and status as dependable industry leaders.  They also wanted a symbol in their logo that represented their profession and emphasized the broker’s role.

Sun Sign Designs selected the symbol of a bridge to illustrate the broker’s connective role between the client and insurance carrier. The symbol of the bridge aptly captures the broker’s role as a reliable, trustworthy mediator that connects two parties with great success. The bridge also functions as a clever recall to one of ARI’s programs—ARI Connect.

The design of the bridge in the logo is not industrial or overly realistic. Instead, it is slightly deconstructed, abstract, and minimalistic. The design takes a memorable, timeless symbol and gives it a fresh, modern aesthetic that is attractive yet remains professional at its core. The color selection of blue conveys strength, dependability, trust, reliability, and professionalism, and the incorporation of the color green adds eye-catching freshness. The combination of blue and green together is also a subtle recall to ARI’s global services.

Need a Logo Refresh?

Your business’s logo is the building block of your branding. Effective logo designs create strong, lasting first impressions that strategically position your business for success. A logo that worked for your business years ago may not be working to your business’s best advantage now. Contact Sun Sign Designs if you would like to discuss a logo redesign that will keep your business moving forward.

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The Most Common Website Accessibility (ADA) Violations

If your website is not accessible to people with disabilities, then it is not compliant with the law. With ADA-related lawsuits continuing to rise every year, it is more important now than ever to familiarize yourself with ADA guidelines and find out if your website violates them.

Even if these violations are completely unintentional, website owners will still be held completely liable. As a result, non-compliant websites risk hefty fines, lawsuits, potential settlements, and damage to their brand reputation.

Unfortunately, many websites today have accessibility barriers that prevent people with disabilities from effectively using their website and services. What are the most common accessibility violations cited in ADA-related lawsuits?

Common Website Accessibility (ADA) Violations

Low Contrast Text

Your website’s color contrast matters. In fact, low contrast text is actually the most common accessibility issue, and it is frequently mentioned in website accessibility lawsuits. An example of low contrast would be light-gray text overlaid on a light-colored background.

Low color contrast can make it very difficult for people with visual impairments to differentiate words from images, graphics, or backgrounds. As a result, web users with color blindness or low vision rely on sufficient color contrast in order to read text. The same reasoning applies to small, unreadable font sizes.

Missing Image Alt. Tags

People with eyesight-related disabilities rely heavily on screen readers to dictate webpage content aloud to them, including images. Since assistive technology like screen readers cannot yet scan and describe images to users on its own, websites must provide written text to describe the image.

Missing alternative text is another common ADA violation that has been cited in many digital accessibility lawsuits. Image alternative text (also known as, alt. text or alt. tags) provide a written description of visual content. Alt. text is essential for blind or vision-impaired individuals because it describes the appearance and function of an image they cannot see. These descriptions are then read aloud to blind or vision-impaired individuals via a screen reader.

Mouse-Only Navigation

Not everyone can use a computer mouse or see a cursor on the screen. As a result, users with motor impairments or visual impairments opt for keyboard navigation or voice-controlled navigation to effectively browse a website.  Consequently, to comply with ADA guidelines, a website must be fully operable with a keyboard alone. The Department of Justice (DOJ) specifically cites “mouse-only” navigation as a major accessibility concern on its ADA Guidance page.

Inaccessible Forms

Forms are a great way to encourage people to interact with your website. They’re also commonplace online and necessary to carry out everyday activities, such as online shopping or filling out a job application. However, people with visual disabilities may not be able to fill out, understand, or submit a form on your website without clear instructions, labels that screen readers can read aloud, and error indicators. As a result, forms missing labels and forms that use color-based error indicators are not ADA-friendly.

Without labeled form elements, users don’t know what they are navigating to or what kind of response the form is expecting. As a result, visually-impaired users may not be able to fill out their credit card or delivery information to complete a transaction, barring them from using a business’s services.

Is Your Website Inaccessible? What’s the Solution?           

By making a good-faith effort to achieve reasonable accessibility for people with disabilities, businesses can avoid potential fines, lawsuits, and losing valued customers. Ensuring that individuals with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments can effectively use your website may sound overwhelming and complicated—but there is a fully-compliant solution all businesses can easily integrate onto their website.

AI-Powered Accessibility Widget

Sun Sign Designs offers the digital accessibility solutions needed for your website to meet ADA Compliance. There’s no need to overhaul your website and rewrite code—we will seamlessly integrate our AI-powered accessibility widget onto your website, so your business can remain accessible to all individuals. We offer an easy, secure compliance solution that doesn’t require reworking your entire site.

To find out more about ADA website compliance, how you can provide equal access and protect your business, contact Sun Sign Designs today!

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Confronting the Rise in Website Accessibility Lawsuits

Last year saw a significant rise in the number of lawsuits filed under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against people with disabilities—whether in physical stores or their online websites. Many of the world’s largest companies have undergone litigation and been required to make their websites more accessible.

In 2021, more than 2,800 lawsuits were filed in federal court about the accessibility of websites, a 14 percent increase from those filed in 2020. Though 2022’s numbers haven’t been solidified yet, it has been approximated that about 100 ADA-based website accessibility lawsuits were filed per week. It is predicted that the final number will be more than 4,400 lawsuits in 2022 alone—which would be a 75 percent increase in the last two years.

Why this major rise in website accessibility lawsuits? This significant increase has been the result of growing awareness of the importance of web accessibility. More and more people are becoming aware of both the social responsibility and the legal necessity of website accessibility and equal access for disabled individuals—especially as more education, employment, entertainment, business activities, and communications move primarily online.

What Happens if Your Website Isn’t ADA Compliant?

There is no defense for inaccessibility.

In most cases of noncompliance, it is completely unintentional. Even if website owners are unaware of ADA Compliance standards, they will still be held completely liable. Every website owner is solely responsible for developing a website that offers “reasonable accessibility,” regardless of who designs the website.

As a result, failure to meet ADA Compliance can result in lawsuits, legal fees, hefty fines, potential settlements, public relations problems, and damage to your brand reputation. First-time violations can result in fines ranging from $55,000-$75,000 and then a $150,000 fine for every repeat violation. In addition to these fines, citizens can file lawsuits against your business or organization for being unable to access it, which could result in a large settlement.

If your website is not ADA Compliant, you can end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and lawsuits. How can you protect your business now and prevent legal action in the future?

Becoming ADA Compliant Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult or Expensive

By making a good-faith effort to achieve reasonable accessibility for people with disabilities, businesses can avoid potential fines, lawsuits, and losing valued customers. The goal here is to deflect future claims, prevent fines, and mitigate legal risk while also providing equal access, inclusive accommodations, and user-friendly solutions. Additionally, ADA-compliant websites also expand audience reach, enrich SEO efforts, improve brand reputation, enhance overall user experiences, and offer businesses tax benefits.

But what does an ADA-complaint website look like exactly? Well, there are no clear regulations. However, websites must make an effort to offer “reasonable accessibility” to people with disabilities. Unlike ADA Compliance, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) isn’t a legal requirement. However, it provides helpful recommendations for businesses looking to improve their digital accessibility. WCAG focuses on assisting individuals with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments. Some digital accommodations include: providing text alternative for images, providing transcript or captions for audio and video content, allowing keyboard navigation and operation, and more. This may sound overwhelming and complicated, but there is an easy solution.

The Solution? An AI-Powered Accessibility Widget

Sun Sign Designs offers a full suite of digital accessibility solutions to help your website meet ADA Compliance. There’s no need to overhaul your website and rewrite code—we will seamlessly integrate our AI-powered accessibility widget onto your website. We offer a secure and easy compliance solution that doesn’t require reworking your entire site.

To find out more about ADA website compliance, how you can provide equal access and protect your business, contact Sun Sign Designs today!

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Key Benefits of ADA Compliance for Your Business

Increased Inclusivity & Accessibility

The best benefit for your business when your website becomes ADA compliant is knowing you are doing the right thing, both for your audience and for your business. Providing equal access and opportunity to your website and business is not only the right thing to do in terms of equity and inclusion, but it’s a smart decision for website performance and reaching a wider audience.

Expand Your Services & Products to a Significant Portion of the Population

If your website is not already ADA compliant, you are automatically missing out on millions of potential customers or clients who cannot reasonably access your website due their disabilities. According to the CDC, 25 percent of the population, or approximately 61 million individuals, live with some form of disability.

That is a significant segment of the population. If your website is not compliant, they may arrive at your website unable to navigate or access your services—all because your website is only accessible to people without disabilities. As a result, these individuals would have good reason to move on to your competitor. Providing reasonable website accessibility options allows more of the population to easily explore your brand, buy your products, or use your services much more efficiently and effectively.

Enhanced Usability & User Experience

Creating a more operable, navigable website ultimately benefits all users. Ensuring that your web pages are easy to comprehend allows everyone, disabled or not, to find what they are looking for quickly. More often than not, people will leave a website that is difficult to navigate and understand, even if they are interested in that business. As a result, ADA Compliance helps your business guide more people through your sales funnel and convert quality leads. Not to mention, using a website that focuses on ease of use leaves a positive first impression.

Build a Positive Brand Reputation

Providing unimpeded access to an audience who is often forced to advocate for themselves will resonate well with your target audience and those living with some form of disability. Simply put, the modern consumer prefers to do business with socially responsible brands. By taking a proactive approach with ADA Compliance, businesses show that they are strong advocates for equal opportunity and equal access.

Not to mention, consumers take heart knowing that they are dealing with a business that cares about them and sees them as valuable. This builds trust with consumers and creates a positive brand reputation. As a result, ensuring your website is ADA compliant not only shows that you care about your customers or clients beyond their business with your company, but it is also a great opportunity to get some positive press for your brand.

Enrich SEO Efforts

ADA-compliant content provides a direct benefit to SEO. Image descriptions, video captions, and other forms of descriptive texts that enable disabled users to use your website actually overlap with SEO efforts by providing more text-based content for search engines and screen readers to “crawl,” ultimately improving your SEO performance.

Now more than ever, search engines are evolving to “crawl” website pages with more intention. Screen readers, a key element of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), will crawl websites just like search engines. As a result, websites that meet WCAG guidelines are more likely to be found by more users, search engines, and screen readers.

A key element of WCAG is accessibility to screen readers, and these reader will crawl your website pages just like a search engine. If your website meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), it will likely appeal to more users, search engines, and screen readers, ultimately improving your SEO efforts.

Mitigate Legal Action

In most cases of noncompliance, it is completely unintentional. Even though website owners aren’t intentionally ignoring these standards, they will be held completely liable. Every website owner is solely responsible for developing a website that offers “reasonable accessibility.” Regardless of who builds and develops the website, it is the website owner that is responsible for implementing the accessibility standards and personally liable for noncompliance.

Failure to meet ADA Compliance can result in lawsuits, legal fees, hefty fines, potential settlements, public relations problems, and damage to your brand reputation. First-time violations can result in fines from $55,000-$75,000 and then a $150,000 fine for every repeat violation. In addition to these fines, citizens can file lawsuits against your business or organization for being unable to access it, which could result in a large settlement.

Maintaining an ADA-compliant website helps protect your business against potential lawsuits and fines in addition to providing inclusive accommodations for all of your customers.

Is Your Business ADA Compliant?

Does your business need help becoming ADA Compliant?

Sun Sign Designs offers a full suite of digital accessibility solutions to help your website meet ADA Compliance. There’s no need to overhaul your website and rewrite code—we will seamlessly integrate our AI-powered accessibility widget into your website. We offer a secure and easy compliance solution that doesn’t require reworking your entire site.

Want to discuss digital accessibility and ADA Compliance in more depth? Contact us today to schedule a strategy session.

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ADA Compliance: 5 Website Accessibility Resolutions for Your Business

The New Year presents a fresh start and new opportunities to improve your business. With the start of the New Year, now is the perfect time to reflect on your business and decide what you want to do different.

Sun Sign Designs is encouraging all businesses to add this goal to their list:

Ensure Your Website is ADA Compliant.

Digital accessibility provides people with disabilities the opportunity to interact with digital content confidently and independently. Making digital accessibility a priority for your business’s website is the best New Year’s resolution. Why? Because everyone deserves the opportunity to access and enjoy your business’s website without difficulty.

With more than 1 billion people around the world using assistive technology, there is an obvious need for websites to be accessible to all of their users. Through this one resolution, your business will become more inclusive, expand audience reach, mitigate legal risk, and enhance brand reputation.

What is ADA Compliance?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) legally requires businesses to make accommodations for people with disabilities. Your business’s website falls under Title III of ADA and is considered a place of public accommodation. As a result, the website owner is solely responsible for developing a website that offers “reasonable accessibility.” Failure to meet ADA compliance can result in lawsuits, fines, and damage to your brand reputation—but most importantly, it prevents a portion of your audience from using your website.

What Your Business Can Do To Improve Digital Accessibility This Year

In today’s age, digital experiences pervade nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s important to make those experiences available to everyone. What can your business do this year to improve its digital accessibility?

  1. Perform a Digital Accessibility Audit

Learning where your website currently lacks ADA Compliance is the first step to improving your digital accessibility. Evaluating your website and finding its shortcomings in digital accessibility will give your business a clear path to move toward a more inclusive digital experience. When done right, the audit will help your business identify accessibility barriers on your website and help you understand how well your digital content currently conforms to accessibility standards like WCAG.

  1. Get Familiar with WCAG Guidelines

Unlike ADA Compliance, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) isn’t a legal requirement. However, it is the most-referenced set of standards in website accessibility lawsuits and is widely considered the best way to achieve website accessibility. In fact, even certain court rulings have ordered businesses in breach of ADA to rebuild their websites with WCAG standards in mind. Even though WCAG isn’t mentioned specifically in ADA, it does provide the gold standard for website accessibility.

WCAG is a set of digital accessibility standards that focus on assisting individuals with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments. It is organized into four major categories: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). Review POUR in more depth here.

  1. Focus on User Experience

When designing your website, focus on the experience of all users. This means your website’s elements are easily accessible to all. No user will have to ask for features that will accommodate them. Rather, those inclusive features will be available as soon as they land on your site. How can you provide inclusive features as soon as your customers land on your website? Read on below.

  1. Implement an Accessibility Tool

Digital accessibility tools like widgets make websites immediately available to every web user and ensure websites are ADA compliant.  Using an accessibility widget is an affordable solution that simplifies and streamlines digital accessibility. Widgets provide an interface that allows all users to customize the website to their individual needs. As a result, users can personally adjust your site’s design to suit their accessibility needs. This could include changing font sizes, switching to keyboard navigation, using a screen reader, changing color contrasts, and more.

Sun Sign Designs offers a full suite of digital accessibility solutions to help your business’s website meet ADA Compliance. There’s no need to overhaul your website and rewrite code—we will seamlessly integrate our AI-powered accessibility widget into your website. We offer a secure and easy compliance solution that doesn’t require reworking your entire site.

  1. Have an Accessibility Statement

By making a good-faith effort to achieve reasonable accessibility for people with disabilities, businesses can avoid potential fines, lawsuits, and losing valued customers. With that said, it is also important for your business to have a statement outlining your ADA Compliance efforts and inviting users to give your business feedback.

With an accessibility statement, your business will show users that you care about accessibility and about them, provide customers information about the accessibility of your content, demonstrate social responsibility, and display a strong commitment to inclusivity on the Internet.

 

Want to discuss digital accessibility and ADA Compliance in more depth? Contact us today to schedule a strategy session.

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